Leaks Inside Walls
Supply and hot water pipes chased into brickwork, found by listening and thermal imaging and opened at one point.
Home/Leak Detection
Leak detection in Bellville should end with a mark on the wall, not a row of holes in it. The leak is isolated first, then pinpointed with acoustic, thermal or tracer gas equipment, and only the marked spot is opened.
Tell us what made you suspect a leak: the bill, a damp patch, a meter that will not stop, or a sound in the wall.
Every one of these can be located from outside the pipe. The equipment exists so that nobody has to open a wall to go looking.
Supply and hot water pipes chased into brickwork, found by listening and thermal imaging and opened at one point.
Pipes cast into or under a concrete floor, located so that one tile is lifted instead of a room.
The run from the meter to the house under paving and gardens, traced so the dig happens at the right place.
Hot pipes lose heat as well as water, which shows up on a thermal camera and on the electricity bill.
Leaks that may start in the unit above or a shared riser, checked before your walls are touched.
Cisterns passing water into the pan and valves weeping into cavities, which the meter shows long before a stain does.
The most expensive way to find a leak is to go looking for it with a chisel. Reviews of leak detection work in the Northern Suburbs describe exactly that: three bathrooms opened before anyone established there was no leak in them, and a flat left with holes in its walls for a leak that turned out to be coming from the unit above.
Isolation comes before equipment. With every tap closed, the meter says whether water is being lost on the property at all. Closing the valves in turn, geyser, garden line, toilets, narrows the loss down to a single run of pipe. Only then does the equipment come out: acoustic listening for pressurised water, thermal imaging for hot pipes, and tracer gas for runs too quiet to hear.
In a flat or a townhouse the search starts wider. Water in your ceiling or wall can begin in the bathroom above, in a neighbour's supply or in a common-property riser. Those are checked before your unit is opened, because the answer changes whose repair it is, and often whether the owner or the body corporate pays.
Once the leak is pinpointed, the spot is marked and you see it before any work starts. The opening is sized to the repair, the repaired section is pressure-tested before it is closed up, and the meter is read again to confirm the loss has stopped.
Before you agree to anything being opened, ask where the leak is. If the answer is somewhere in this wall, the finding is not finished yet.
Reviews in this area praise two things again and again: a clear explanation, and minimal disruption. That is the standard.
You see the exact spot on the wall or floor before anything is cut.
In shared buildings the unit above and common pipework are ruled in or out first.
The repaired section is tested before it is closed, and the meter read again after.
Photographs of the leak point and the repair, written up for your claim.
Leak detection is priced as a fixed fee for locating the leak, quoted before the visit. The repair is priced separately once you have seen where the leak is. How call-outs and labour are charged is on the plumber prices page.
Close every tap and read the water meter, then read it again an hour later without using any water. If it has moved, water is being lost somewhere on the property. A sudden jump in the water bill, damp patches and warm floor tiles are the other common signs.
Only at the spot where the leak is, once it has been pinpointed. The equipment is there so that the search happens from outside the pipe and the opening is made once, sized to the repair.
It depends where the leak is. A leak in pipework serving only your unit is usually the owner's; one in a shared riser or common property is usually the body corporate's. Finding the source first is what settles it, which is why neighbours and risers are checked before your unit is opened.
Yes. Thermal imaging picks up hot water leaks through tiles and screed, and acoustic equipment and tracer gas find cold ones. The goal is to lift one or two tiles, not a whole floor.
The most common silent causes are a toilet cistern passing water into the pan and an underground leak between the meter and the house. Both show up on the meter test, and the cistern one can be checked with a few drops of food colouring in the tank.
If it is on the hot side, yes. A leaking hot water pipe drains the geyser, which keeps reheating cold water to replace what is lost. A geyser that seems to be running all the time can be a sign of a hot water leak.
Yes. Photographs of the leak point, a description of the cause and the itemised repair invoice are provided, which is what an assessor normally asks for.
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Meter moving, bill climbing or a damp patch that keeps spreading? Send the details and we will come back with a fixed price to find it.